Alkyl esters, and in particular, alkyl hydroxybutyrates may be useful in a variety of end-use applications. For example, alkyl hydroxybutyrates may be employed as pharmaceutical intermediates or as fragrances or other additives in a variety of consumer products. Recently, it has also been discovered that alkyl hydroxybutyrates may be useful as organic cleaning solvents and may be used to create aqueous cleaning compositions that are both highly effective and exhibit a benign environmental and toxicity profile. Currently, alkyl hydroxybutyrates are obtained by extracting polyalkylhydroxybutyrates (PHB) from plant materials or other biomass and then depolymerizing the PHB to form lower chain length hydroxybutyrate materials. This method is expensive, time consuming, and difficult to control and is nearly impossible to carry out on a large scale.
Thus, a need exists for an efficient method of producing an alkyl hydroxybutyrate, which can consistently provide high-purity product in a time- and cost-effective manner, preferably on a commercial scale.